Run
by iGloomy
Summary: Francis said he'd be back by now. Zoey's not in the mood to wait around for him. Warning: Character death.


He said he would be here.

Where was he?

Zoey couldn't remember how long it had been since Francis had told her to run and save her ass, along with Bill and Louis. The time had blurred. Seconds into minutes into hours… Jesus. The brunette's head hung low as she hunched over her bruised knees, not bothering to try and stop her nose from bleeding. It made no sense to try anyway, she had maybe a few hours of numbness left, thanks to the pills… But once those wore off, the pain would just start right back up again. And between the three of them, they had used up their med kits already. It was all of no use.

The girl lolled her head to the side to peer wearily at Louis, who was in considerably much better health as he tried to wrap Bill's arm with a strip of his pant leg, her eyes glazed from the shock of the devastating attack from the horde and her injuries. That Hunter had pinned her when she was dazed from being strangled by a Smoker, and Zoey had paused for a split second to catch her breath. The young woman hadn't realized how far away she had been dragged until she was being ripped apart by that shark of the Infected. Francis had been the one to get the fucker off of her, get her up, and send her limping as fast as she could toward Bill and Louis. The brunette hadn't wanted to leave him. Leaving him meant leaving him by himself, but the tattooed brute would have it no other way. He promised that he'd meet them at the safe room… That there was something he had to go back and get.

But here they were, locked in the safe room. Without Francis. Zoey blinked slowly, bringing Louis and Bill's figures back into focus, her mind working at the speed of a half-dead turtle as she tried to speak, her voice sounding strange and broken.

"Where's Francis..?"

Louis turned his gaze momentarily to the weary girl's face, flashing her a small, kind smile.

"I'm sure he'll be here soon, Zoey. He's a tough guy."

Her friend's kindness was appreciated, but Bill's silence said it all. Francis wasn't coming back. And Bill knew it. But Zoey wouldn't accept the fact that he could be dead. No. That just wasn't possible. Francis was some sort of immortal. He was a mean, tough bastard. And being labeled as such made him unstoppable in the college girl's eyes.

Being immortal didn't mean that you didn't get trapped sometimes, though. Even Zoey wasn't fool-hearted enough to believe that.

Standing up shakily, her vision blurring in the process, the brunette picked up her semi-automatic shotgun, reloaded it with fresh ammunition, and limped her way to the door of the safe room. She was going to find Francis and bring him back. He had been gone much too long.

Louis nearly had a heart attack as she approached the door. It was quiet outside, but that hardly meant that danger wasn't lurking in the damn shadows of the train tracks.

"_Zoey!_" Leaping up to hold her back from the door, Louis grabbed onto her shoulder, spinning her around carefully, meeting her determined face with his own worried one. "What the hell do you think you're doing? You can't go out there! You'll get yourself killed!"

"Sit your ass back down, kid. He's right." Bill grumbled, finally raising his dark eyes to her, standing up himself, hunting rifle in hand. There was a long silence shared between the three of them before the old vet decided to speak again. "I'll go find him." And without another word, Bill pushed his way behind the two others and unlocked the door to the safe room, stepping out into the dimly lit train yard.

Louis was torn. What the hell was he supposed to do? Follow Bill to cover his ass, or stay safe with Zoey in the safe house--… Who was conveniently not in the safe room anymore. Actually, she was limping after Bill, wiping her bloody nose on her jacket sleeve as she went. Decision made.

"Aw, hell." He sighed, picking up his assault rifle before he jogged out behind the two of them, glancing back over his shoulder like the paranoid survivor he was. Deep in his gut, he knew this was a horrible idea.

Forty-five minutes of back-tracking proved to be none-too-disastrous… Yes, there were a few stray zombies here and there, but most of them had been taken out in the flurry of the first go around. Zoey had almost dropped her gun a few times out of sheer exhaustion, but she masked it quite well by blinking hard and moving onward as fast as she could. She could hear her heart beat thud heavily inside her skull, and she could have sworn that her eyes were going to burst from the pain, but onward she went, fueled only by the possibility that Francis would still be alive somewhere, just stuck under some rubble, or caught underneath a train car.

But it had been nearly an hour already. Zoey was starting to get desperate.

"Francis?" She called, the blood rushing to her brain in an unpleasant pulse. "_FRANCIS!_" the young woman howled, her voice echoing off of the hollow walls of the empty train cars. She immediately regretted calling out for her fallen friend as both of her other teammates glared daggers at her, hearing the tell-tale call of the Horde. Ah. Well. The sudden realization that she was going to die was terrifying. Terrifying enough to light the fire inside of her belly to run, and she was at a full sprint now, bleeding from several cuts and wounds as she mowed down the stray zombies that happened to stumble into her path. Louis and Bill weren't far behind her now, and her head was spinning with terror and pain when she picked up a small sound somewhere to her left in the ravines beside the train tracks.

Her heart stopped for a beat as she heard the sound again, much clearer, and much more meaningful this time.

"Down here!"

Francis was alive.

"Francis! Francis! Guys! I found Francis! He's _alive!_" Zoey cried over her shoulder before she practically threw herself down the side of the ravine, thorns scratching and clawing at her skin and clothes. She was hurt. Badly. But dammit, she had found Francis. She didn't care.

Kneeling down next to the incapacitated man, Zoey immediately tried to offer a hand up to her weary friend. It was rejected with a simple tug away from her hand. The brunette looked almost horrified at the action, having to pause to kill several of the infected that were attracted to the smell of her open wounds.

"Francis. Come on. We have to get out of here." She urged him, trying once again to help lift him up. And once again, Francis refused. "Stop it!" Zoey shrieked, tears springing to her eyes from the urgency of the situation. "Quit joking around and get up!" the college girl was starting to worry about the both of their lives as she heard the familiar scream of a hunter from above, somewhere near Bill and Louis.

"I'm not going anywhere, idiot…" Francis laughed quietly, the sound quickly darkening into a wet cough. Zoey didn't like where this was going. Fear shot through her like lightning as she watched Francis spit blood from his lips, rolling his attention back to Zoey, immediately grabbing her and pulling her down to fire his pistol at the charging zombie from behind her. "I'm done." He said after a minute, forcing himself to roll over a little onto his back, revealing a devastating wound—intestines spilling out onto the forest floor.

Zoey's eyes went wide in terror.

"You know that damn Hunter that pinned you..?" The man grinned, his teeth red with blood. The injured young woman could only shake her weary head pleading for a miracle under her breath. "Well… I killed 'im just before you got here…" Another cough sent Zoey into a fit of silent tears, her hands shaking as she turned to blast the heads off numerous approaching zombies. This wasn't happening. She found Francis! He… He had to live..!

"I really fuckin' hate vampires…" Francis wheezed, his breathing slowing down quite a bit.

"Francis..!" The brunette whimpered, compulsively wiping the blood from his face with her sleeve.

"Shut up. I… got what I went back to grab… Here." With the remaining bit of his strength, Francis pulled a red kit out from underneath his limp body, handing it over to Zoey.

A medical kit.

Francis had gone back to find that damn medical kit for her.

For. _Her._

"Y…You idiot..! Why didn't you _use_ this?!" Zoey didn't know whether to scream at Francis, or to thank him profusely… But the yelling made her eyes blur a lot more than they already were. "Cover me. I'll fix you up." The second Zoey had tried to bring out the disinfectant, Francis placed his weak hand on hers, shaking his head wearily. The brunette fell silent as she watched her friend's eyes flutter shut in exhaustion, his voice wheezy.

"I told you… I'm done," Neither of them noticed when a torn up Bill and Louis made their way down the ravine to help. "Heal up, Zoey…" The dying man would not let up until his partner began to patch herself up, watching her with glazed eyes as she shakily bandaged her hands and legs. Once finished, she placed a gentle kiss against the biker's lips, wiping more blood from his cheek to keep his face clean. He had always been concerned about how his face looked after he was injured. There was no reason he should be concerned about that right now.

"There," Zoey whimpered, anguished eyes trained on Francis' oddly serene face as he shut his eyes, reaching out for the woman's hand yet again. "Are you happy now..?"

Without warning, a tongue shot from the depths of the forest, wrapping itself around Francis' wrist, attempting to drag him into the darkness. The three able-bodied survivors shot blind rounds into the forest to try and stop the Smoker from dragging the biker away... And it might have worked, too, if it hadn't been for the surprise horde of zombies that amassed from nowhere in the vastness of the trees. From within the darkness, a violent scream of a Hunter could be heard, and immediately, Zoey swerved around to try and locate the special, but was beginning to become overwhelmed by the incredible number of Infected.

Francis knew what was coming.

He knew he was going to die here.

With a deep, raspy breath, Francis hissed at his terrified teammates to spur them on.

"_Run_. And don't… Look back."

Zoey didn't want to listen. She couldn't bear to leave them. But she knew what she had to do. Urged by Louis' screams to get her ass up and run, she was yanked upward by Bill toward the train tracks as she forced the tears out of her eyes. She felt alive. She felt broken. She was going to live.

She was going to live. Thanks to Francis.

His heroism would not soon be forgotten.

And as she ran, Zoey could only hear Francis' words bounce and echo in her mind.

_'If you survive, maybe God's tryin' to tell you something.'_

And god dammit, she would survive this for him. Because of him.


End file.
